Poppy Trail


"Tamaghis ... Ba'dan ... Yas Waddah ... Wagdas ... Naufana ... Ghadis ... it is said that an initiate who wishes to know the answer to any question need only repeat these words as he falls asleep and the answer will come in a dream." (from: "Cities of the Red Night," by William S. Burroughs)

From Pages 158-59:

Tamaghis: This is the open city of contending partisans where advantage shifts from moment to moment in a desperate biological war. Here everything is as true as you think it is and everything you can get away with is permitted.

Ba'dan: This city is given over to competitive games and commerce. Ba'dan closely resembles present-day America with a precarious moneyed elite, a large disaffected middle class, and an equally large segment of criminals and outlaws. Unstable, explosive, and swept by whirlwind riots. Everything is true and everything is permitted.

Yass-Waddah: This city is the female stronghold where the Countess de Gulpa, the Countess de Vile, and the Council of the Selected plot a final subjugation of the other cities. Every shade of sexual transition is represented: boys with girls' heads, girls with boys' heads. Here everything is true and nothing is permitted except to the permitters.

Wagdas: This is the university city, the center of learning, where all questions are answered in terms of what can be expressed and understood. Complete permission derives from complete understanding.

Naufana and Ghadis are the cities of illusion where nothing is true and therefore everything is permitted.

The traveler must start in Tamaghis and make his way through the other cities in the order named. This pilgrimage may take many lifetimes.

Transposed from Burroughs into the American West, the essence of the cities is retained in "Poppy Trail," with the traveler being given the name, "Ray Johnson," to represent the International Johnson Family. I made no effort to copy any of Burrough's physical descriptions. For example at one point in the novel he describes Yas Waddah as mud colored and set in a flat swampy area while I describe it as having snow white villas set on hillsides.

It describes the devouring mother energy (Countess de Gulpa) and the surrounding mother complected men who serve her (The Council of the Selected). The constant plotting to overthrow the other cities, which characterizes Yas Waddah, reflects the black and white thinking of the masculine animus in women.

Ba'dan, the city of commerce, is like present day America. The rider with red hair and the rider in black reflect the masculine, intellectual energy on the right side, which is conscious and the shadow side, which is always trying to regress back to Tamaghis.

The journey described by Burroughs is one with five points, even though the last one is composed of the twin cities of illusion. That is the point where one has overcome the cultural education, finalized in Wagdas, and moved beyond it to a place where duality can reside in the mind without conflict. This is the successful individuation. Five is the number of individuation, and often when it appears in dreams it will appear as fifty cents, fifty dollars, five o'clock, or some other seemingly inconsequential detail.

The instruction of "Kill the guards who have secured the border" echoes Burroughs, who writes that Earth is a penal colony, and if you want to escape you have to "kill the guards and walk."


POPPY TRAIL ©2000 Dan Lee

Riding into Tamaghis Ray Johnson saw a Portuguese
woman kneeling by a soldier’s body.
Her daughter was just four years old but
she kept watch while her mama stole
that soldier’s ring and forty-seven dollars,
Ray tipped his hat and he half smiled
on the side of his face turned to the child
and the other side it photographed the mother.

You’d better ride you’d better run
you’d better learn to use those guns
and kill the guards who have secured the border.

Saddle up and ride away
you had to come but you can’t stay
you’d better keep on riding to the Western Lands

Ray rides on toward Ba’dan behind a three-mile caravan
of caviar and European water.
There’s a red headed rider on his right
and a rider in black who’s headed back
to a temple dedicated to his mother.
He left her back in Tamaghis
to build the family business
so she’ll be proud to pass it to her daughter.

You’d better ride you’d better run
you’d better learn to use those guns
and kill the guards who have secured the border.

Saddle up and ride away
you had to come but you can’t stay
you’d better keep on riding, to the Western lands.

The setting sun reflects upon the snow white villas scattered on
the hillsides of the city of Yas Waddah.
The Countess dressed in black and white
has a voracious appetite
and everything is food that surrounds her.
Selected Men they worship her
they stroke her cat and learn to purr
how they’ll kill anyone who offends her.

You’d better ride you’d better run
you’d better learn to use those guns
and kill the guards who have secured the border.

Saddle up and ride away
you had to come but you can’t stay
you’d better keep on riding to the western lands.


Ride on Ray hear Wagdas call from those ivy covered walls
that close around your natural understanding.
Here it’s true if you can prove it
they shrink your mind and remove it
for a little polishing and sanding.
Ride to the cities of illusion
sculpt your face from this confusion
nothing’s true therefore you have permission.

My Uncle Bill left a Poppy trail
when a stray shot sent his soul to hell
and his spirit headed south across the border.

On Spirit Horses we will fly
when that first bullet rips the Sky
we’re riding high to the Western Lands.

Posted: Fri - March 26, 2004 at 10:03 PM